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@pkcpa wrote:

Could you elaborate on how you linked your individual SS account with your BSO account?

 

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Magic?

I was surprised that it worked.  From my aging memory, this is what my clients had to do:

Start here: https://www.ssa.gov/bso/bsowelcome.htm

Under Employers, click Log in, which takes you here:

https://secure.ssa.gov/RIL/SiView.action?LVL=7&URL=/RIL/bso

Both of my clients use login.gov to access their personal SSA accounts so click on that (presumably you could also do this with id.me if there's an account there instead).  Once you go through the login process it should authenticate you and then automatically bring you back to the BSO site where you can access your W-2 filings.  It somehow knew that the individuals were also the responsible parties for their respective corporations (presumably through the magic of SSNs).

If you encounter any problems along the way (forget/reset password or have to upgrade security), login.gov seems to "forget" that you're really just trying to log in to BSO and puts you somewhere else.  So then you have to log out of the somewhere else and start over with a fresh login attempt from the BSO site (but now hopefully with a correct password).

YMMV.  One client was able to verify identity online by entering a credit card number in his name, the other couldn't verify identity online so we had to wait while login.gov snail mailed her a letter with a PIN.

Clearly the people thinking this stuff up have never had any sort of ID theft protection training.  You literally either have to take a picture of your driver's license and/or passport and upload it over the Internet, or type in your credit card number on a site where you aren't buying anything.  Things you generally should never ever do.

I heard in the past they were able to authenticate through cell phone providers, maybe that's still an option somewhere but that has not been my recent experience.  They may have stopped that process because too many people have cell phones on group/family plans.